About John Birch and his prayer and Bible Study Books

Prayer is at the heart of Christian worship, and has been since humankind first encountered their Creator in a certain garden!

The form of prayer and liturgy used in the major denominations can often be traced back to the early centuries of the Church.

In 1997, a lapsed Anglican, sometime Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian, I began training to become a Local Preacher within the Methodist Church as that was where God had led us as a family. Practical training of course involved service preparation and the choosing of appropriate prayers (not being tied to a specific prayer book or liturgy).

The choice was a simple one - I could use extemporary prayer, turn to collections of prayers, or I could write my own (not feeling confident enough to pray ‘off the cuff’, and with less than fond memories of the ‘traditional’ Presbyterian opening prayer which can happily meander along for fifteen minutes in the hands of a true expert!)

I opted for the second but found that I wasn’t altogether happy with the books I had purchased. There were good prayers within them, but also many that didn’t speak as I do, and maybe didn’t excite or challenge me as they should. So that left me the choice of writing my own, which I started doing some years ago.

Then the idea of sharing these prayers via the internet came to mind!

That's where faithandworship.com started, and now has visitors from every corner of the world, from Newfoundland to Tasmania and all bus stops inbetween!

John Birch